West Belfast Youth and Community Group set for New York Fundraiser on June 5th
Widespread appeal made to New York Irish-American community to support grassroots Irish language youth facility meet capital funding shortfall
A pioneering youth and community organisation based in the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast are bringing their capital fundraising campaign stateside next week with a landmark event in Rosie O’Grady’s in Manhattan on Thursday 5 June. Glór na Mona is an award winning community empowerment organisation that has received international recognition as a vibrant, grassroots, youth-centred organisation dedicated to mainstreaming the Irish language in everyday life and promoting a community-led approach to tackling the root causes and corrosive impact of transgenerational trauma and structural poverty.
As well as pioneering Irish-medium youth-work, providing for hundreds of disadvantaged young people each week, Glór na Móna has also led the way on local economic development, community education and movement building, playing a key role in the successful An Dream Dearg campaign for an Irish Language Act in the north of Ireland. The organisation also sits at the heart of a wider network of organisations focused on economic and linguistic revival, currently holding the presidency of Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League).
Building on the work of the Gaelionad Mhic Goill community hub that Glór na Móna built in Ballymurphy in 2016, their new Croí na Carraige project envisions a multi-purpose youth, community, family and heritage hub on the vacant waste ground beside their current facility.
Speaking on the rationale behind the fundraising campaign, Glór na Móna founder-member and newly elected President of national language body, Conradh na Gaeilge, Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin stated:
‘We have full planning permission to build a purpose-built youth, community and heritage facility on the site- Croí na Carraige. We have been successful in securing £1 million of capital funds, which includes £500,000 from Belfast City Council who own the land and have a design team in place. We also have funding from the Irish Language Investment Fund and the Shared Island Fund. Phase One of the building is coming in at about £1.6m so we are £600k short. The Government departments in the Stormont Power-sharing Executive that are controlled by political unionism have told us that that they have no money but we believe the funding is there if those with power and responsibility make our young people a priority. This is why we were forced to launch our own fundraising campaign to lobby and engage Irish America to help us deliver our vision for the young people of West Belfast.
‘We are calling on the New York Irish American community to support our fundraising event in Rosie O’Grady’s on June 5th. We will be hosting West Belfast Sinn Féin MP, Paul Maskey and renowned TV presenter and musician Doireann Ní Ghlacáin whilst the event will be opened by music by the talented Brooklyn musician Chris Byrne.
‘In spite of that, Glór na Móna are rooted in the revolutionary philosophy encapsulated in the famous ‘Belfast Shaws Road dictum of ‘Na habair é, déan é’ (Don’t talk about it, do it!) and instead of waiting on state bodies to catch up, we have decided to launch our own fundraising campaign to meet the capital shortfall ourselves. We are incredibly grateful to the likes of the Irish Echo, Power Sustainable, Fine Construction, Silvercrest, the O’Cathain Law Group and the AOH and others who have supported the event to date. We welcome any and all support that helps us make the Croí na Carraige project a reality.
Speaking ahead of the event in Manhattan which he will address, Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey said:
‘We believe that this ground-breaking project will become a flagship Irish language community project that can develop as a best practice example of grassroots minority language community development that can provide national and international inspiration to those working in this field. As the MP for West Belfast, I have witnessed first hand the hugely positive impact Glór na Móna has had on the lives of particularly young people in the community and the influence it has had on the broader language revival movement. We fully support the ambition of the Croí na Carraige capital project and look forward to working with Glór na Móna to make it a reality’.
For further information:
Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh
Feargal@glornamona.com
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Notes for Editors:
Glór na Mona, which was established in 2004, has since evolved into a vibrant, grassroots, youth-centred organisation dedicated to mainstreaming the Irish language in everyday life.. In addition to youth work, Glór na Móna has also led the way on community education; participatory democracy practices; projects focussing on intergenerational family language transmission and social language use; environmental and climate activism and local community, history and heritage recovery. They utilise the Irish language, the unique community resources and local environmental amenities to challenge socio-economic inequalities by targeting social exclusion and successfully tackling the long term causes and corrosive impact of transgenerational trauma and structural poverty.
